Serenity: Children of Shadow
by Jim-El
Summary: Chapter 2 complete.
1. In the Dark

SERENITY

Children of Shadow

I

Once, she was nothing more than a small moon orbiting a planet made of dust and death. Her face had more pockmarks than a child with pox. The distant sun's light touched her faintly, but it barely penetrated the gravel and ice that suffocated her surface. She was a ghost in space.

Then, one day, the humans came.

Wearied and wide-eyed, their ships descended upon her like hungry vultures, giant metal talons sinking into the earth. They had come from a far off world in far worse condition than this moon's black motherplanet. From Earth That Was. Machines floated down with them and chewed up the thick dirt and sprinkled seeds and melted centuries of ice to discover bountiful resources. They swiftly began to draw out the life that still prevailed deep in the moon's frozen heart. Soon, the grasses and crops spread wide. The air was cleansed and the skies turned blue and children ran at their laughing parents' feet.

All was well.

Until one day, a war began that ruined it all. Blast waves toppled towers and crushed babies' skulls and turned the streets blood-red. It was over all too quickly, but not without massive tragedy. As the dust settled and the giant hand of the Alliance gave way in mercy, those that remained kept their heads low and their hopes lower. Within weeks, the moon began to decay. Deserts expanded and rivers narrowed and disappeared.

There are many tales of woe in the aftermath of the war between the stubborn Independents and the stoic, steely Alliance. Some say, those that died in the war outnumbered those that survived. Few disagreed with that. But even fewer remembered this lonely island of an almost-world, this crossbreed between barren moon and hopeful microplanet.

This world called Shadow.

***

On the cramped bridge of his cramped ship, a captain sat studying the readouts of his navigation console. Numbers and graphs spilled across jaded screens. One in particular had his attention, displaying a little planet by the name of...

"...Shadow."

He blinked as if waking from a trance. "Huh?"

Boot-steps behind him; he swivelled in his chair and looked up into the eyes of his best friend.

"I _said..._ How long's it been since you last set foot on Shadow?" With a playful smile, she leaned against a compartment door and added, "I thought you'd miss your momma's cooking _long_ before now."

The captain smiled. "Rations _are_ getting tiresome. And _Serenity," _he patted the console, "needs a refit and a rest. Besides, should be interesting to revisit the old homestead."

"I say: let's visit the _bank_."

"Zoe, did your voice just turn all manly and moody?"

A large and ungainly brute stepped out from behind her, chomping on an apple. "Manly? Mal, I'm flattered."

"Don't be, Jayne." Mal stood up. "And no. Shadow's my home planet. You rob from _it_, you rob from _me_."

Jayne nodded slowly. "Uh-huh..."

Mal looked up at the ceiling. "That means I shoot you in the face."

Jayne conceded, "That's not my style. _You_ know that."

"Robbing from friends?"

"Getting shot in the face." Jayne took another big bite of his apple and disappeared into the hallway. Shaking her head, Zoe went over to the secondary nav-console on the left-hand side, checking a few dials and screens. Mal watched her. She was looking much better lately. There was a shine in her skin and a fire in her eyes that he hadn't seen since...

Malcolm blinked. That pain was still fresh. In his mind's eye Wash was looking at him with childish glee. _I_'_m a leaf on the wind..._ A Reaver spear burst through the front window and punched through Wash's chest and out the other side, killing him. All that proceeded was instinct fuelled by fear and experience. The horrors of the war left echoes that would never stop ringing through Malcolm Reynolds. It also kept him sharp when times got testy.

It was only after the dust settled, and the battle was over, that he finally allowed himself to feel the effects of the loss.

_Wash wasn_'_t just a good pilot,_ he thought. "He was a good man." Mal winced as soon as he blurted it, but there it was, and now Zoe was looking him straight in the eyes. He slowly sat back down.

"Sir?" A tough woman, Zoe. Still calling him sir long since they lost the war. Even being the better warrior, she always looked up to him and stood by him.

There was a strange look on her face now, though.

"Wash," Mal said slowly, looking first at the banks of screens and controls in front of him, then giving Zoe a small, heartfelt smile. "I'm sorry he's gone. I'm...sorry for bringing him up."

The strange expression, the mild look of shock, melted away, and Zoe smiled from ear to ear, showing a strength that had, for a while, almost completely faded away. "Don't be. He'll always be my he-"

The rest was drowned out by a piercing scream.

***

A shrill beep cut through the silence of a young commander's quarters. He immediately closed his mediaviewer and hit the _Receive_ command on his vidwall. He stood to attention, and adjusted his grey Alliance tunic as an old and scarred face appeared.

"Jonas," said the scarred man.

"General Hiro," Jonas replied, nodding gently. "It's been a lo-"

"Yes, yes. It has, and all that." Hiro smiled unpleasantly. "I hate pleasantries, Captain King. Let's get to business. I have a serious problem. Actually, _we_ do. That problem needs fixing. _Fast."_

Jonas knew _problem _meant _person._

The general went on, "You and your crew are no strangers to black ops. Consider this the blackest of them all."

Captain Jonas King raised his eyebrows a centimetre in measured surprise. General Hori was quite often the most robotic and unreadable commander he had ever served under. So compared to his usual deadpan attitude, the general was practically hysterical. Somehow this individual had successfully turned the rock into lava. Jonas watched with polite interest as the general punched a button hard, replacing his grimacing face to that of a man in his mid-thirties, with guarded eyes and a ready smile. Suspected of quite a number of deaths, according to the side-info.

One of his infractions had been blurred, Jonas noticed.

"Seems this man has been _very_ naughty, General," he said. "Otherwise, why encrypt one of his crimes?"

Rather than reply, the general punched another button. Two words sprung up in gold:

_Reaver Ally._

"_What?_" Jonas prided himself on his ability to detach from emotion, environment and pain. But the shock of those two words cracked his facade and his senses. "Reavers don't ally themselves with anyone. They just try to eat everyone, including each other."

The cocky face vanished and the general returned to the screen. "Tell that to five hundred dead officers."

"I was informed that they perished in a training...accident..._ah..._"

General Hori nodded slowly and low, so his chin touched his chest, while he kept his eyes rooted firmly on King. "He was the one that splashed that horrid video across the cortex. He's a terrorist, an anarchist, an extreme danger to our society, and he must be stopped before all hell breaks loose."

"Former Browncoat?"

"Yes!" Again, Hori seemed top burst at the seams. Sure, this target had caused all manners of shitness for entire departments of bureaucrats and the like, but that was far below the military's responsibilities or interests. Yet Hori resembled a man in the throes of torture, all uppity and terrified. That worried King. During the war, it had never bothered him seeing a Browncoat Independent in pain—they deserved their comeuppance—but to see an Alliance general so worried...

Something else was up.

Jonas dared not voice his suspicions. Instead, he gave a curt salute, and told Hori, "General, send me every gigameg you have on these boys and girls. I'll disappear them, no questions asked."

"Good man. Uplink sent. It'll arrive shortly. Keep the crew witless bar your special five. And King..."

Jonas had leaned forward to stand up, but sat back and said, "General?"

"This is the ship you're looking for."

A short video sprang up, captured from one of the Alliance cruisers before its untimely demise. There was a huge blue cloud of electricity sparking around the edges. In the far off distance, Reaver ships, cannibalised from countless victims' ships, tools and their very bones. And in the centre, spinning on its axis, ducking and weaving around intersecting fire-beams, a potbellied ship of ungainly shape rushed up to the camera. As it blurred past, its nose dipped down and on its "neck", painted in bright white against a golden emblem, was the word _Serenity._

***

Mal's expression turned hard. He jumped out of his seat and clambered down the rear steps to the main walkway, Zoe right behind him, the scream still echoing through _Serenity._ They peeked into the engine room but the core spun soundly and without incident. Down they went to the secondary deck. A young man raced out of the small medlab, eyes wide, and muttered something urgent at them but it was indecipherable.

"Doc...?" called Mal, but the doctor was racing to his quarters and so they followed; no-one was there. The young doctor turned and pushed through them, went back by the lab and on through the open blast doors to the main hangar. Mal and Zoe were one step behind. There, in the middle of the hangar, stood a young girl in a silky green dress fit for a ball, except for the huge gashes in its material. Her hair was in knots and blood seeped from a dozen small cuts to her face. Her hands were held out as if offering something invisible to them and she fell to her knees wailing.

"Simon..." Zoe began, but the young man was straight over to the girl, hugging her tight and pushing her hair out of her face and whispering, "River...What's wrong...what's going on....what happened...?"

There they were, the two of them rocking slowly back and forth, Simon hushing her and River calming down, her cries turning to sobs and finally to barely audible moans. Mal noted that Simon had something pressed against River's shoulder; when the pulled his hand away he saw it was a morphine patch. She fell into a sleep against her brother's shoulder.

Simon looked up at the two veterans. "Sorry."

Mal shook his head, crouched down to the doctor and the sleeping girl. "Is she OK?"

Simon eased his hands under her neck and legs and with a grunt he stood up, cradling her. "I'll take her to the lab and find out."

Mal and Zoe watched as Simon brought his sister out of the cold hangar bay and into the sterile white and blue cocoon of the ship's medlab. Then their eyes met, and fell upon the spot where River had stood screaming. The overhead lights shone down on them, casting deep shadows across a puddle of River's blood.

***

_Shadows and light._

_Polar opposites. Neither tangible yet we live for one and retreat from the other._

_Light burns shadow. Shadow dampens light._

_Symbiotes and nemeses. One dies without the other._

_Alliance and Independents._

_Yin and_ _Yang._

_Earth-That-Was and_ Serenity.

_Mal and-_

River woke up and screamed. The overhead lights moved down to blind her and crush her, chew her up and grind her bones and drain her blood to fuel the engines and spit her soul into the deep bad black. She brought her shoulders and elbows and fists up to protect herself and when claws reached out and gripped her arms she lashed out, feeling her knuckles connect with flesh and bone. There was a yelp and a clatter of skull on distant metal and something told her she'd done something very very wrong.

"River!"

"Simon?" She blinked. The pain was still fresh. In her mind's eye Simon was looking at her with new-found strength. _I have to get my medbag..._ A Reaver bullet burst through the blast doors and punched through Simon's chest and out the other side, flooring him. All that proceeded was instinct fuelled by fear and training. The horrors of her conditioning left echoes that would never stop ringing through River Tam. It also kept her sharp when times got testy.

It was only after the dust settled, and the battle was over, that she finally allowed herself to feel the effects of almost losing Simon.

_Wash wasn_'_t just a good pilot,_ she thought. "He was a good man." River winced as soon as he blurted it, but there it was, and now Zoe was looking her straight in the eyes. River slowly sat up.

"River?" There was a strange look on her face.

"Wash," River said slowly, looking first at the banks of screens and controls over her bed, then giving Zoe a small, heartfelt smile. "I'm sorry he's gone. I'm...sorry for bringing him up."

The strange expression, the mild look of shock, intensified, and Zoe frowned and stepped away, showing a fear in her eyes that River never thought she'd see.

"River..." Simon again, and he was pulling himself up from the floor. A large welt was growing on his lower lip, and he was wiping blood from his mouth. River felt awful.

"Simon I'm so sorry for one second I was standing in the middle of Osiris and the sky was blue and the fountains sparkling and the city was full of smiles and then the big blue hands wiped everything away and picked me up and ripped me apart. I fell apart Simon." She turned and looked at Zoe. "Everything fell apart."

The two adults stood over her and gave each other strange glances, as if the two of them were psychically linked. _Is that what this is?_ she wondered for a moment. _Are they psychics like me? They_ _can block me?_ _Discuss my problems and find solutions and work me out and break me down? Simon...no..._

Zoe left quietly, while Simon remained, his tunic stained with blood both his and River's.

She thought about her dizzying dream, about the shadow and the light, feeding off each other.

_If the shadow_'_s bigger than the light, then someday, one day, soon, there will be only shadow._ _Shadow and death._

Then the darkness came once more and ate her up.


	2. Running Smooth

In the black ocean of space, the Alliance cruiser _Vigilant_ shimmered like a gigantic kitana blade.

From his pilot's seat of his personal shuttle, King gasped in awe. "Truly a thing of beauty...." His hands graced his nav console and steered his shuttle towards the nose-cone of the giant vessel, all the while taking in the details of his new starship. She was dotted with up-thrusters, deflection concaves and the latest, biggest ion drive. Guns were mounted along each hull, based on swivel-points. She was a beautiful beast.

More than enough to catch and crush _Serenity._

He moved through her corridors, nodding and saluting at old colleagues and new subordinates. The Alliance had spared no expense: holoscreens, direct-retinal-projections, mood-sensors: the ship _really_ went out of its way...

_To provide information_ _swiftly and efficiently, whilst maintaining officers_' _comfort at maximum levels._

That's exactly what the on-board computer had said in its sly voice, and it was no hyperbole. This ship wasn't just brawny, it was brainy too.

The bridge doors parted and King stepped out onto the main deck. What a bridge: huge, crammed with computers of all shapes and sizes, mid-lit to ease on the eyes. A dozen officers turned and greeted him with a round of salutes. He gave them all a quick nod, then turned to his XO.

"Burgess."

The man was fat. Unhealthily so, but refused to accept bioregulators. His eyes seemed double his fifty years. "Welcome, Captain King. All departments report in ready. Course plotted for Cobalt."

"Cancel that course, Commander." This made Burgess' eyes widen ever so slightly, not out of shock but rather as an inaudible _Huh? _King continued, "New course: Shadow. Full speed. Keep the cloak down."

The XO repeated the commands and the juniors punched them in. Overhead, the voice of the _Vigilant_ echoed out. "_Course set for Shadow. Trajectory: near-perfect. Minor detour through-_"

King said, "Information acknowledged, accepted, and I'm very bloody grateful. Audio off."

_Vigilant_ obligingly shut up.

Burgess frowned and leaned in close enough that no one else could hear. "Jonas, aren't we going to break this little baby in first, before we go star-trotting?"

King shook his head. "No time for that. We're on a special mission. Gather the other four in my briefing room in fifteen minutes. We have some flies to swat."

Burgess nodded and smiled. "Just like old times?"

"Better than. We have a shipful of targets and the flagship to squash them with. Burgess, this shall be fun."

The two friends shared predatory grins, eyes gleaming, while the _Vigilant_ gave a tiny shudder and raced towards her prey.

* * *

Simon pulled the blankets over himself and in the silence of his bedroom he whispered, "Thank you."

A girl replied, "You're welcome."

He jumped. "Kaylee. You're awake?!"

Kaylee giggled softly beside him. "I am _now." _She curled up tighter against him. "What're you thanking me for, anyways?"

"Actually." Simon now laughed, though he was a bit nervous. "I was thanking God."

Kaylee pulled herself back a little and smiled up at him. "For what?"

Still embarrassed, Simon couldn't meet her eyes when he confessed, "You."

"Awwww!" Kaylee gave him a big hug and kiss. "That's so _cheezy!" _Even in the shadows, she could see his face had turned red. "That's what I _love _about you." There it was. She'd let the wrench out of the box. The doctor was no longer anxious: he had a frozen smile, almost a grimace. "Sorry..." she began, "I..."

Simon jumped. "River. You're awake?!"

Kaylee rolled over, protecting her modesty, and there in the doorway stood River, still sleepy from the earlier dosage. Her arms had all healed, and she looked a lot better than when the couple had checked in on her earlier. "River, how are you feeling?"

Normal everyday folk would make a quick polite conversation and leave. River wasn't everyday. "Better. The cuts are all gone. My brother made them all better. Is he healing _you _now?" River asked this as she proceeded to her own bed in the twin room.

"Ah the joys of sharing a bedroom with my wonderfully bright and slightly insane sister_,_" said Simon cheerfully, just before River picked up a lose towel and flung it in his face.

Kaylee quickly threw a robe around herself and stood up."See you crazy two later." She gave them both a wave. "Gotta make sure the engines're still spinning."

Simon reached out to say something to her but she was gone.

Now River was sitting on her bed looking straight across at him. "I _am _insane, aren't I?" She looked simultaneously miserable and wry, her lower lip pouting.

"No! I was just kidding, River."

"But...I hurt myself..." She looked down at her bare arms where there had been tiny gashes weeping blood.

Simon threw a robe on and climbed out of bed and gave his little sister a big hug, held her tight and tried not to worry about what lurked in her helpless, innocent mind. "You'll be OK. I promise."

* * *

"Swear an oath that all that I revealed today in this conference room will remain here and go no further." Jonas King tapped a finger on the safety toggle of his handgun. "Under pain of death by me."

His four closest officers nodded.

Burgess stood up. "I'll ready the landing team." He left the room.

Of the three, the toughest, stockiest one stood up and gave King a fierce smirk. "Bet I get my claws into 'em before you do."

King was tempted to mock his arrogance but simply shook his head and said, "Excellent Gruber, I hope you do."

The wiry technician in the trio, young and cowardly, scratched his bald spot. "I can trace their transmissions. Even encoded ones. Might lead us right up to their dinner table."

"Excellent," King said again. "Go do that, Bell."

Gruber the brute and Bell the nervous technology imp walked out. Now there was just King and a woman that could bore holes in armour plating.

"Well?" said King, tapping his gun.

"I don't like it." She stood up, adjusting her tunic so it fit her body perfectly, and strolled over to him, eyes burning. "An Operative?"

"Operative _training,_ Aryana,"explained the captain, tugging on his collar. "A mite different. Besides," and he pulled his gun out, "even Operatives can't stop a bullet."

Aryana stepped up close enough that he could smell her skin. "No. But an operative can rip a hand off at the wrist. I can show you..."

King smiled slowly, then sighed in relief when she turned and left. Only then could he admit, "That woman terrifies me."

* * *

"You're quite a woman, Inara."

The beautiful young woman stopped in her tracks. "Mal, I'm barely off my shuttle and you're gracing me with a compliment already." She smiled girlishly.

"We're barely gone two days and you grace three clients. Quite a woman." Mal smiled.

"I detect a tone of jealousy, Captain. Or possessiveness. I'm not one of your petty thieves."

"True," admitted Mal, watching her descend from the shuttle bay walkway and down into the main cargo holdher dress shining brightly as her eyes. "But your work's just as dirty, right?" He smiled even more.

Inara stopped. "You're not normally like this. What's wrong?"

Mal paused. "River...she's worrying me. Gone and hurt herself."

Inara went over to him. "She's never done that before."

"No." They looked right into each other's eyes. "Sorry."

She shook her head. "You've said worse. Besides, it's good to be home. I missed _Serenity."_

"Wasn't the same without you. _Serenity, _I mean. You bring a certain glamour."

Inara laughed out loud. "You've never said _that_ before!"

Mal shrugged, studied his own boots. "Been feeling funny. Shadow and all..."

"You're not looking forward to it?"

Another shrug. "Some things I miss down there. Other things, needed leaving behind. Soon as _Serenity_ gets patched, we get going. I...wouldn't recommend getting clients there..."

Inara replied, "Thanks for the warning-"

"You probably got little to no sleeping done anyhow, am I right?" He strode off to the cockpit, smiling but feeling pretty guilty. He sat down and punched in the co-ordinates to Shadow. To the right, Opal, home to Inara's three clients, shrunk away. Sliding forward the accelerator, he felt the gentle kick as _Serenity _dashed forward through space.

_Serenity_ had become his home. Didn't please Mal much revisiting old haunts. But it was the one planet with the right plating to get her properly fixed up at a decent price. He just hoped he'd live long enough to regret it.

* * *

"You're dead!" a woman cried, bursting out of her log cabin and shoving her shotgun inches from Mal's face. Her eyes were wild with fear.

He stepped back and gently pushed the barrell down. Behind him, _Serenity _gently rested at a landing spot a hundred feet away, her engines roaring in the summer breeze.

She looked at the ship, then back at him. "Maybe you're not..."

Six figures ran up behind him. Jayne cried out, "Mal, she's got a gun!" he was brandishing his own hefty machine gun and leveling it at the armed woman.

Mal turned to Jayne and shouted, "At ease Jayne, no shootin gonna happen here anytime soon."

The six approached cautiously, River the most anxious, Simon watching her and Kaylee stuck with Zoe, who was smiling warmly.

Inara stepped up and looked to the captain puzzled. "Mal...?"

The gun still hovered but when the woman laid eyes upon her she gasped and lowered it by her hip. "Wow, Mal, you marry this woman?"

Both Mal and Inara spat, "NO!"

The woman raised her free hand. "All right, all right, no need for fussin, just saying, she's a beautiful young lady and I was _hopin _for a grandchild..."

The credit dropped.

Inara said, "She's your...?"

"Mom," replied Mal, and he stood beside his mother, and the two of them shared identical, inane grins.


End file.
